‘Juilliard Annual Student Composers Recital’

February 23, 2010

Anyone with the chops to survive Juilliard can earn at least a living wage regurgitating the pieces they mastered for repertory class, but a few choose to pursue a craft that, for hundreds of years, has been met somewhere between chronic neglect and ritual harassment. These self-loathing “composers,” braving competition from Beethoven on one front and Vampire Weekend on the other, gather once a year to celebrate the new. Keep in mind, Philip Glass and Steve Reich went through this program, and once upon a time their work was debuted at this same free event.